A couple of weeks back we heard from a contact. He said there was a store room at Brunswick Mill, Ancoats, that had some aA stuff in. The Mill had been bought by a developer and everything had to be out immediately. We hadn't been down there for nearly 15 years.
Our man on the phone had been in the band Politburo and was the pioneer of Brunswick Mill as a music space, opening rehearsal rooms there nearly 20 years ago. In 2004 there were pigeons flying through, pigeon shit everywhere and floors with tonnes of sewing machines set up with garments left on them unfinished since the 70's.
Anyway aA took a space in Brunswick Mill - 'The Unit' - and Loose Canon, Autokat and The Mons shared it. We remember Soft Priest dancing and swaying in gentle ecstacy as he produced a still unreleased Loose Canon track.
The Unit hosted some real underground aA parties and anyone who came was blown away by the architecture of the courtyard with the red wrought iron stairs and total sense of decay making it seem like a set from a Batman film.
Dave Rowe from Autokat & @planktheband recorded Autokat's Late Night Shopping Album there. Loose Canon's unreleased demos of 2006, recorded by Raymond Ray, were beautiful. Its a buffalo recorded the Don't Be Scared album there with Dave Rowe.
Later @mikejoycedrums joined Autokat and used to come down the unit, totally cool and relaxed, just into playing music and enjoying it. He loved the band and had been playing their single Innocence on his Radio show for ages. Autokat recorded pretty much a whole second album with Mike which is still unreleased.
We met Beat The Radar down at Brunswick Mill by chance and then went to watch them play a few tunes in their room. There were amazing and we signed them.
So back to 2023, we went down Brunswick Mill and came across a time capsule featuring the aA PA that provided the sound for so many seminal parties at The Gardens Hotel, The Rampant Lion, Oak Road and more.
And we found a load of original vinyl pressings of records that we thought had been lost. @vinyl.resting.place.afflecks is going to be hosting an aA section and some records are heading to straight to Peru for @panicoenelatico
